Sunshine Village officials are neither confirming nor outright denying claims that the Banff National Park ski hill wants to build a lift from its parking lot to the top of Wawa Ridge.
Sunshine Village Watch (SVW), a group of anonymous individuals who say they want to promote increased public and government scrutiny of the ski hill, made the claim on its website.
But a spokesman for Sunshine Village says he can’t comment on any of the ideas being tossed around by the ski hill because they’re in negotiations with Parks Canada.
“I don’t think so. I don’t know if it’s in, I don’t know if it’s out,” said Crosbie Cotton, director of the National Parks Ski Area Association.
“We’re in negotiations with Parks Canada to try and come up with what the future resort looks like. It’s premature to discuss anything we might be looking at.”
According to its website, SVW is an informal network of concerned community individuals wanting to improve employment conditions, workplace and public safety, environmental compliance and public relations honesty.
The anonymous watchdog group claims Sunshine’s recent internal planning includes expanding the lease boundary to include Wawa Ridge and Wawa Bowl.
The group claims there’s talk of possibly placing a lift from Bourgeau parking lot to the top of Wawa Ridge.
According to the Banff National Park Management Plan, a permanent lease boundary for Sunshine ski area will be determined and legislated as part of the ski area planning process.
Banff National Park superintendent Pam Veinotte said Parks Canada will develop site guidelines with each ski hill operator that include negotiated permanent limits to growth.
As directed by the 2006 ski area management guidelines, she said site guidelines must first be approved before Sunshine can bring forward specific projects for Parks Canada’s consideration as part of a long-range plan.
“We’re very early in the process, and so it would really be inappropriate for me to even look at any specific proposal that Sunshine may or may not want to bring to the table,” she said.
On its website, the SVW group is also calling on Parks Canada to deal with vehicles parking along about eight kilometres of a public road beyond the ski hill’s lease boundary.
The group says not only is this in contravention of Sunshine’s lease with Parks Canada, but the group says this causes environmental and safety concerns along the road.
Cotton said the most pressing issue facing Sunshine is addressing the parking situation.
He said Sunshine works hard to give people safe parking, provides a shuttle service, trained parking attendants, improved signage and does not allow parking in avalanche zones.
“A few times a year, during peak seasons like the Family Day weekend, Christmas and Easter, there’s parking on the road and we’re trying to manage the best of a bad situation,” he said.
“Previous environment ministers created a real challenge to address parking and we’re trying to resolve it in a co-operative and collaborative manner with Parks Canada.”
The ski hill has long fought for expansion of its parking lot, but has also ruled out a parkade because of the high costs.
“We’re in discussions with Parks Canada, so it’s premature to say what the potential options are. We’re trying to explore every option,” said Cotton.
“We are hoping we can convince Parks Canada and the government and everyone else involved to address the parking at Sunshine to improve the visitor experience.”
Parks Canada officials indicate they are willing to allow vehicles to park on the road as a “short-term solution.”
“We certainly recognize the parking challenges that do occur at Sunshine, but we have to remember it really is tied to peak days, which are really about 10 times a year,” said Veinotte.
“The use of the roadway is a short-term measure and we recognize the short-term situation isn’t ideal, but it’s during the development of the site guideless and long-range plans that we’ll get to the long-term solution.”
